STAR TREK #5

Cover shows strong gloss and bright, unfaded colors with sharp corners and clean edges. There is a faint vertical crease line running through the upper portion of the cover between the logo and the barcode area, and slight handling wear at the top edge. No major spine stress ticks, tears, or color-breaking creases are visible, and the barcode/newsstand box is intact. Interior pages and back cover were not assessed, and the book is currently in a protective sleeve which may obscure minor surface flaws.

Star Trek #5 belongs to Marvel's first ongoing Star Trek series, launched in 1980 on the strength of the license for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. By issue #5 the book had moved past adapting the film into original adventures featuring the full bridge crew of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Sulu, and Chapel, alongside a new supporting character, Marcella DiFalco. The issue carries no first appearance, origin, or death of consequence; its principal point of interest for collectors is the cover, pencilled by Frank Miller and inked by Klaus Janson at the moment Miller was becoming known industry-wide through his concurrent run on Daredevil, paired with interior art by X-Men artist Dave Cockrum, letters by John Costanza, and colors by Carl Gafford, under editors Jim Shooter and Dennis O'Neil.

Demand for this issue is driven less by the Star Trek license itself, which has never commanded the depth of collector interest seen in Marvel's superhero output, and more by Frank Miller cover-collectors working through his complete bibliography, plus Star Trek comics completists and Cockrum fans. Newsstand print runs on Marvel's licensed titles of this period were substantial, so raw copies remain plentiful and inexpensive in low and mid grades. High-grade certified copies are comparatively scarce simply because so few were preserved from the newsstand distribution channel, which supports a real if modest premium for a CGC 9.8 relative to the raw market.

This is a book that trades as inexpensive supporting material for most Bronze Age boxes, with low and mid-grade raw copies functioning as low-cost run-fillers for Star Trek or licensed-comics collectors. The more active bidding shows up at the top of the grade scale, where a clean 9.8 slab draws crossover interest from Miller cover-run collectors and census-conscious Star Trek specialists, giving the high grade a meaningfully wider spread over mid-grade raw than the story content alone would justify. It is not a book positioned for speculative key-issue appreciation, but its niche, cover-driven demand keeps it steadily, if quietly, tradable.